Subtext and Other Barriers to Communication
by Lys ap Adin
Summary: In which Yamamoto and Gokudera attempt to communicate with each other and mostly make a mess of it, but get there eventually. Yamamoto x Gokudera, smut, boys being idiots at each other.


**Title:** Subtext, Body Language, and Other Barriers to Communication**  
Characters:** Yamamoto, Gokudera**  
Summary:** In which Yamamoto and Gokudera attempt to communicate with each other and mostly make a mess of it, but get there eventually.**  
Notes:** For armadillo at DW, to the prompt "cheap cigarettes," because she guessed my sekrit identity in the last round of khr_undercover. Smut, 5171 words, set in some ambiguous future.

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**Subtext, Body Language, and Other Barriers to Communication**

Yamamoto Takeshi had a guilty secret: he liked to watch Gokudera smoke. How Gokudera handled his cigarettes, or so he'd found, was a better indicator of Gokudera's mood than anything that Gokudera actually said. Gokudera was always gruff, always impatient, and always ready to explode with righteous anger on Tsuna's behalf. A body couldn't really trust that to mean anything.

No, it was better to watch how he smoked, if the goal was to figure out how Gokudera really felt at any given moment. Did he handle the cigarette and the lighter with short, jerky movements? He was angry, then, and possibly upset. Did he hold the cigarette between two fingers, using it to gesture with, always within a hair's breadth of burning someone or setting the walls on fire? That was Gokudera excited or happy. Did the cigarette hang from the corner of his jaw, ash collecting at the tip? Then he was deep in thought, and he wouldn't thank anyone who disturbed him.

What Takeshi liked best was moments like the present one, when Gokudera's fingers were precise in their movements as they drew the cigarette out of its package and tapped it against the package before sticking it in his mouth--Takeshi didn't know exactly why Gokudera did that, but he nearly always did, even when he was at his most upset. Gokudera cupped his hands around the cigarette and light flickered between his fingers and against the lower half of his face, and then he sat back and drew a breath, and exhaled a stream of smoke, and smiled, just a bit, looking out the window at the Vongola's gardens.

And that was Gokudera, happy.

"The hell are you staring at?"

Not that Takeshi could have told it by how Gokudera spoke, and hence the need for watching him. He laughed, and waved his hands. "Ah, nothing, just thinking!"

Gokudera eyed him, clearly suspicious, and took another drag off his cigarette. "You? Thinking? That'll be the day."

He took the cigarette and tapped the ash off the end, two quick flicks of long fingers that had his knuckles moving under the skin. Takeshi watched, fascinated, as Gokudera lifted the cigarette to his mouth again, and wrapped his lips around it with a soft sound, as of contentment.

And then he promptly ruined the moment by demanding, "What? I got something on my face?"

"Hah, no! I just zoned out, I guess." It was easy enough to do, watching Gokudera--easier than Takeshi guessed it was supposed to be, sometimes.

Gokudera wasn't buying it, though. "You've been staring at me all night. Quit it."

"Sorry," Takeshi said, as meekly as he could manage, and dragged his eyes away from Gokudera, forcing them back down to his magazine, and focused on that.

Halfway through the article on Honjo Masaru, the click and rasp of Gokudera's lighter caught his attention again. Takeshi lifted his eyes, watching the slow, precise movements of Gokudera's fingers, knobby knuckles and smooth nails--Gokudera was weirdly fussy about some things, for all he liked to act like a punk--and Gokudera's lips, faintly wet around his cigarette.

"You act like you've never seen a man smoke before."

Takeshi jumped, guiltily. "Sorry!" he said, quickly, and offered Gokudera his friendliest grin. "Don't know where my head is tonight."

Gokudera's answering snort was inelegant. "Your brain. Right." He drew the cigarette out of his mouth, holding it between two fingers, and regarded it with a critical eye. "Filthy habit. Don't ever start."

"Why did you start, then?"

It was a stupid question to ask, and Takeshi knew it before the words had finished leaving his mouth. He could practically see Gokudera's walls slamming down. "Don't remember," Gokudera told him, words clipped off and rude, and took a quick drag off the cigarette, with short, choppy movements.

Damn it. It'd been such a good day, too.

"Sorry," Takeshi said, genuinely penitent. "None of my business, right?"

"Damn straight." Gokudera stared out the window, jaw and posture held tight, and this was another mood, the one Takeshi liked the least, when Gokudera had gone someplace inside his head that clearly wasn't good for him.

Takeshi was getting really tired of that mood; he'd seen too much of it on this trip to Italy. He folded the corner of the page down and flipped his magazine closed, and sat up. "I like watching you smoke. You make it look good." There, he thought. Let's see what Gokudera made of _that_.

Gokudera pretty much just stared at him, turning his face from the window and letting the cigarette hang from the corner of his mouth, forgotten. "The hell?"

"You make it look good," Takeshi said, patiently, since Gokudera wasn't always good with the things that shook his worldview up. "Smoking, I mean. So I like to watch you."

Gokudera absorbed that, and then snorted again, looking away. "You hit your head lately, or something?"

Clearly, it was a good thing he'd never expected this would be easy. "No. Besides, I've always liked watching you."

"Creep."

"Hah, not like a stalker! Just... watching you. Wanting to know you." It wasn't like Gokudera was ever going to let himself be known any other way, not unless it was with Tsuna. That had been pretty clear right from the start, and Takeshi had made peace with that fact, mostly.

Gokudera glanced at him. "Creep," he said again. "How the hell do you think you can do that, watching me smoke a damn cigarette?" he said, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette.

"It's how you show your moods," Takeshi said, and watched Gokudera's hands still on the cigarette. "Right now you're not actually angry, yet. You're just... defensive." That seemed like a better word to use than _scared_, anyway. "Before that, when I asked you why you started smoking in the first place, that made you sad. And before that, you were in a good mood. Satisfied."

Gokudera stubbed out his cigarette, with short, vicious movements. "Yeah? And how do I feel now, you fucking stalker?"

"Pissed off," Takeshi told him, starting to wish he'd never opened his mouth in the first place. "Still defensive. Probably wondering whether the Ninth would mind just a very small explosion in his guest quarters. I think he would, by the way."

For a moment, Gokudera looked like he didn't know whether to go for the bombs anyway, or just yell. He settled for a sneer. "So fucking what?" he said, hands going for the pack of cigarettes. Takeshi could tell when he realized what he was doing, because they stopped short and then curled into fists. "Goddamnit."

"I don't think that anyone else watches you like I do," Takeshi offered, after a moment, in case that would help.

"I don't want anyone watching me like that," Gokudera flared, and reached for the cigarettes again, before stopping himself. "_Goddamnit_."

"Sorry," Takeshi told him, after a moment of watching him dither over wanting a cigarette and not wanting to smoke in front of a witness.

"Stop saying that when you don't mean it," Gokudera told him, and pulled out another cigarette, every moment sharply defined and jerky. "You're not sorry at all, you creep."

Takeshi had to admit that was mostly fair, and pulled his knees up to wrap his arms around them. "Is it really so bad?" he asked, watching Gokudera smoke and glare, every centimeter of him angry and defensive. "I thought it was supposed to be a good thing, if someone liked you that much."

"You're still so goddamn naïve it makes me sick, you know that?" Gokudera hunched over his cigarette, eyes glittering with something that was probably rage, which, if Takeshi was any judge, was keeping back something else altogether. "Anything someone knows about you, they can use against you, moron. This is the mafia, you stupid bastard. Knowledge is a weapon."

"But I'm your Family," Takeshi said, as reasonably as possible, given that "reasonable" and "Gokudera Hayato" were not always compatible terms. "I don't think it's supposed to work like that inside the Family."

"Supposed to," Gokudera repeated, mouth twisting, and then he stubbed the cigarette out, only half-smoked. He rose in one easy movement, and Takeshi hated everyone and everything that had put that look on Gokudera's face.

He reached out and caught Gokudera's wrist before Gokudera could get away. "I mean it," he said, tilting his head back so he could look Gokudera full in the face. "I don't want to know you because I want to hurt you. I want to know you because I like you."

"Whatever," Gokudera said, trying to shake his hand free. "Let me go. I need some air."

Yeah, and if he did that, they'd never get this settled. "It makes me really annoyed when you won't listen to me," Takeshi said, evenly, and didn't let go of him. "I like you, Gokudera Hayato. Even though you don't like yourself. And even though you don't think anyone else should, either."

After saying something like that--especially to someone like Gokudera--Takeshi couldn't find it in himself to be surprised when Gokudera took a swing at him. It was with his off hand, and at an awkward angle, so it mostly just glanced off Takeshi's jaw. "Fuck you," Gokudera said, pissy as a wet cat, and then cursed him again when he realized that now Takeshi had his other hand, too.

"Can you actually _do_ that with a goat?" Takeshi asked him, when he'd finally wound down a bit. "Seems like the goat would object."

"Hate you so much," Gokudera told him, just about vibrating with outrage, and his wrists were flexing and straining against Takeshi's grip.

"I know," Takeshi said, as calmly as he could manage, considering. "Wish you didn't."

"Oh, _fuck_ you," Gokudera said, with a scowl and another attempt at getting his hands free.

Maybe it was time to get all his cards on the table. "Wouldn't mind," Takeshi told him, and smiled when Gokudera's jaw dropped and he stopped straining against Takeshi's grip. "What? I told you I liked you. What did you think I meant?"

Whatever reaction he'd hoped for, it wasn't going to happen. "Not that!" Gokudera yelped, and redoubled his efforts to get free.

Takeshi took a breath, and then another, at that. "Yeah. That's... starting to be pretty clear." Damn, and didn't that make him feel like he really was an idiot for thinking that all the time he'd spent looking at Gokudera, Gokudera had been looking back? "Well. Guess that settles that, huh?" He turned loose of Gokudera's wrists and found a smile for him that stretched his mouth to the aching point, and sat back. "Sorry, man. I've been freaking you out for all the wrong reasons. I'll lay off."

"You'd better," Gokudera snapped, and jerked away from him. He slammed the door behind him so hard that the entire room shook.

Takeshi ran his hands over his face, rubbing it and considering how completely he'd managed to fuck that one up. He probably couldn't have screwed it up more if he'd tried.

Sometimes he wondered whether he really was as much a fool as Gokudera claimed he was.

The article he'd been reading about Honjo had lost all the savor it'd had. Takeshi finished it anyway, out of principle, and puttered through the rest of the magazine, hoping that Gokudera would come back and he'd be able to do something to repair their working relationship, if nothing else. Gokudera hadn't ever been the obliging sort, though, and Takeshi gave it up when the clock ticked over to midnight. He changed into his pajamas and turned out the lights, and didn't expect to sleep.

Sleep found him anyway, because he jerked awake when a hand clamped itself over his mouth. He tried to struggle against the weight kneeling on his chest, heady muzzy with sleep, convinced that there had been an attack on the Vongola mansion. Sense only penetrated slowly, with the smell of cigarettes and alcohol and Gokudera's voice in his ear, sharp and impatient. "--stop it, you great stupid oaf, it's _me_."

Takeshi relaxed his struggles and peered up at Gokudera, who was nothing more than a dim outline in the darkness, and made an enquiring noise against the hand pressed against his mouth.

"No, you've had your say," Gokudera growled at him, and Takeshi's eyebrows flicked up in spite of himself--that sure smelled like wine on Gokudera's breath. "Now it's my turn."

Fair was fair, so Takeshi hummed against his hand, willing to assent to that.

"All right, listen. You're fucking crazy, and you have a death wish, and you're an idiot." Gokudera's voice was savage as he listed off all Takeshi's faults. "You don't know a damn thing about me, but I'm going to get this out of your system, because I also know that you don't fucking let anything go, ever. So keep your mouth shut, and remember that it's only this once."

"You're drunk, aren't you?" Takeshi said, as soon as Gokudera removed his hand.

Gokudera made a sound that was supremely aggravated. "Didn't I just tell you to keep your mouth shut?"

"You really should have known better than that," Takeshi said, groping for him in the darkness. His hands closed on bare skin, and he hissed with his surprise. "Where are your _clothes_?"

"I told you: we're getting this out of your system." Gokudera's voice was grim in the darkness, and he was twitchy under Takeshi's hands. "Now shut up."

His mouth was hard against Takeshi's, as grim as his voice had been, and tasted of cigarettes and wine. He was taut, too, thrumming with some kind of energy--nervous or angry or both, Takeshi wasn't sure which.

That decided him. "No," he said, against Gokudera's mouth, and turned his face away. "Not like this."

"The fuck?" Gokudera sounded outraged. "I saw the look on your face. You want this."

"Not _this_," Takeshi told him, around the hoarseness in his own throat. "I want you. Not some pity fuck to get you out of my system. Especially not one where you have to force yourself into bed with me. What kind of person do you think I am, anyway?" He found Gokudera's bare chest, felt the heartbeat there, trip hammer fast, and pushed him away. "Go to bed. I'm going to forget you ever insulted me like this, okay?"

With that, Takeshi curled onto his side, huddling into himself, and tried to swallow his anger down.

"I don't understand," Gokudera said, after a minute or two had gone past. "What the hell do you _want_?"

Right now? To have never opened his mouth in the first place. "Go to bed," he said instead of that. "Forget about it. That's what I'm going to do."

"See, and this is why you make me crazy." Gokudera shoved his shoulder, sounding aggrieved. "Every time I think there's something more going on inside your pointy little head, you won't show it to me."

"I told you what was going on," Takeshi said, from between his teeth. "I told you that I liked you, and that I wanted you. What's so hard to understand about that?"

"Everything!" Gokudera snapped, and shoved at him again. "Are you crazy? You think this makes any kind of sense?"

"It seemed like it did at the time," Takeshi muttered, curling away from him. "I like you, and thought you maybe liked me, too. I was obviously _wrong_, so I'm sorry. Can we just forget this already? Seeing as I don't actually have any dignity left, and I'd like to keep what's left of my self esteem intact?"

Gokudera was silent after that, until he finally said, heavy and bitter, "Should have figured it was just a joke."

What was left of Takeshi's temper snapped. "_Goddamnit_," he said, and threw the blankets off. Gokudera made a startled sound, and started his reaction a few beats too late; by the time he had begun to respond, Takeshi had sat up and lunged for him. They went skidding over the edge of the bed, and Gokudera cursed, breathless, as his back hit the floor. Takeshi ignored him, and his struggles, and pinned him down, hands on Gokudera's wrists and his knees spanning Gokudera's hips, holding him in place. "Listen to me, you goddamn stubborn asshole," he said, angry right down to his bones.

Gokudera went still beneath him.

"I've just about had it with you," Takeshi told him, anger searing his throat. "You can say and do whatever the hell you want with your own emotional constipation, but stop deliberately misunderstanding me. I'm not fucking joking, do you get it? I'm _serious_, and I--I--" He stopped, suddenly exhausted by the impossibility of it all. "Why the fuck am I even bothering? You don't listen to me, anyway. I'm just the idiot with the sword, right?"

"I don't know why you're bothering, either." Gokudera's voice was distant, like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "Seriously. Me?"

"Of course, you. Who else?" Takeshi asked him, wearily. "Who else would get it?" Who else would understand what it meant to be a Guardian, to stand at Tsuna's shoulder and pledge to take on the world and all comers?

The room was dark; nevertheless, he thought he might have seen the ghost of a smile, teeth gleaming briefly through the gloom. "Don't think Hibari's attached."

"Maybe if I hadn't met you first." Takeshi let go of Gokudera's hands and sat back on his heels, rubbing his forehead and pretending that he wasn't perfectly aware that the only thing between him and Gokudera were his pajamas. "It's up to you, how you want to react," he said, finally. "But I'm not going to let you fool yourself into thinking that this is a joke. It's not."

Gokudera's hands landed on his hips before he could move away. "So prove it," he said, voice all brassy challenge.

He should have known. Gokudera was a scientist at heart; of course he wanted empirical evidence. "How?"

"Show me you mean it," Gokudera told him. "If you really do."

"You know I mean it," Takeshi said, exasperation flaring up again.

"Prove it," Gokudera told him again, like it was some kind of dare.

Well, he'd always been bad about turning down dares, Takeshi thought, resignedly, even though he was pretty sure giving in wasn't the most brilliant idea he'd ever had. There didn't seem to be any other good way of getting Gokudera's attention, though, so he stroked his fingers up Gokudera's chest and throat to find his face, feeling his way by touch since it was too dark to see what he was doing, and bent down to kiss Gokudera. He tried to go slow with it, trying to show Gokudera what he was too stubborn to accept the words for.

Gokudera made a sound against his mouth, like he hadn't quite thought Takeshi would do it, and then parted his lips for Takeshi and let Takeshi kiss him like he meant it. Takeshi did, curving his hands around Gokudera's face and focusing all his attention on Gokudera and the slow movement of his mouth against Gokudera's, on the taste of cigarettes and wine and the muffled sounds of Gokudera's surprise.

Gokudera's hands rose, slow and uncertain, one of them coming up to grip Takeshi's shoulder, hard enough that it ached a little, and the other coming to rest in Takeshi's hair. That seemed like a good sign. So did the heat that Takeshi could feel at Gokudera's groin, burning even through the cotton of his pajama bottoms. Takeshi closed his teeth on Gokudera's lower lip, carefully, and got a gasp for it. He tried the same thing on Gokudera's throat, and got a moan. That was good, too; so was the sound Gokudera made when Takeshi turned his head and brushed his mouth over the knuckles of the hand that was gripping his shoulder so tightly, which suggested something.

He ran his lips over Gokudera's knuckles, nuzzling them, and lifted a hand to ease Gokudera's grip loose. Gokudera made another sound, low, as Takeshi traced his mouth over the long lines of Gokudera's fingers, tongue sliding over his knuckles and lapping at the taste of his skin--cordite and nicotine, the tang of salt and spilled wine, and under all that the taste of Gokudera's skin. Gokudera made another of those sounds as Takeshi closed his mouth around Gokudera's fingers, sliding his lips down them and sucking, and the heat of his erection pressed against Takeshi, steady and insistent. Takeshi considered that, and pressed down against him. Gokudera moaned outright at that, and his hips lifted and ground against Takeshi. "I have--stuff," he gasped, breathless. "Things for--this. On the nightstand."

Problem was, there was a bed between them and the nightstand, and Takeshi wasn't entirely sure that Gokudera wouldn't change his mind in the time it took to rectify the matter. "Later," he said, against Gokudera's palm. "We can get to those later."

"What do you--" The rest of Gokudera's question got lost in Gokudera's moan as Takeshi ground down against him again, and then he cursed as Takeshi shifted away from him. "Damn it, what do you--"

"Shh," Takeshi said, spreading his hands against Gokudera's chest, following the lines of his ribs down Gokudera's sides, and let them settle against Gokudera's hips.

Gokudera made an incredulous noise, and then another as Takeshi shifted to kneel between his knees. "You aren't seriously--"

"Do you always talk this much in bed?" Takeshi asked, amused, and lowered his head to trace his mouth up the hard length of Gokudera's cock. Gokudera's hips jerked against his hands, straining against them as Takeshi lapped at the head of him, tongue moving slow and soft against him.

Gokudera's groan was inarticulate, throaty, and deeply satisfying. Takeshi hummed, pleased, and closed his mouth around Gokudera, stroking his mouth over Gokudera's cock, slow and easy. He drank in the way Gokudera moaned and gasped for him, and the way Gokudera's hips tried to buck into the slow movement of his mouth but couldn't, and the taste of him on Takeshi's tongue, salt and musk. He kept his mouth slow and steady, bent on coaxing Gokudera into pleasure, on melting him into a puddle right there on the floor of the room, and on showing Gokudera how very serious he was. Gokudera gasped and swore at him as he did, tangling his hands in Takeshi's hair as Takeshi moved over him, until he was just gasping, voice gone hoarse. When he finally came apart, it was with a helpless, open moan as he shuddered, arching under Takeshi and then subsiding into a boneless, sweaty mess against the floor.

Takeshi took advantage of Gokudera's incoherent daze to stretch out over him. He wound himself around Gokudera, deeply satisfied with the way Gokudera's entire body was still trembling with aftershocks. "There," he said, and slid an arm around Gokudera, flattening a hand against Gokudera's chest--Gokudera's heart was still pounding.

"I can't believe you just did that," Gokudera said, eventually, still sounding like he was stunned. "You... you just... does this make you the girl?"

Takeshi blinked; that wasn't the reaction he'd been expecting. Heck, it wasn't even in the top ten. "Uh, how about no?" he suggested, and rocked his hips against Gokudera, grinding against him. "Wrong parts to be the girl, remember? Geez, and you call _me_ an idiot."

"That's not what I meant--" Gokudera made a sound as Takeshi pressed against him, insistent.

"You talk way too much in bed," Takeshi informed him, and kissed him again, open and slow and just a little hopeful.

It didn't go over nearly as well as he'd hoped it would. Gokudera went rigid under him, and then pushed him away. "Oh my God," he said, sounding horrified. "You just had your mouth on my--and--oh, _God_."

"Not unusual for that to happen when you go to bed with someone," Takeshi said, slowly, a suspicion beginning to dawn on him, slow and terrible. He wished he could reach one of the lamps, just to be able to get a good look at Gokudera's face. "Um. You've never done this before, have you?"

"What kind of loser do you think I am?" Gokudera demanded, acid and rage mixing together in his tone.

That wasn't any kind of answer at all, but the way Gokudera had gone taut against him was. "Oh, shit," Takeshi breathed. "Oh, _shit_..."

"Shut up," Gokudera said, fierce. "Just because some of us don't fall into bed with just anyone who gives us a come-hither look doesn't mean a damn thing."

"What are you talking about?" Takeshi asked, over the rising tide of his own horror. "Of course it means something! It means an awful lot! Your first time should be special, for pity's sake."

"...I was right. You _are_ a big fucking girl," Gokudera said.

"Giving a damn about the person I take to bed with me doesn't make me a girl," Takeshi said, flat. "It makes me a decent human being." And damn it, he should have known. Gokudera only put on that much bravado about something when he didn't have a clue what he was doing. "_Damn it_. I'm sorry."

"What for?" Gokudera asked, after a moment, sounding diffident about it. "What would you have done so differently?"

"Just about everything," Takeshi said, making a face that Gokudera couldn't see. "Starting from when I told you that I liked watching you smoke." It would have made everything make a lot more sense if he'd just put inexperience and insecurity together to come up with one twitchy, tetchy bastard named Gokudera Hayato. "I wouldn't have done it on the damn floor, either," he added, disgusted with himself.

"You don't mind sucking my cock, but you mind doing it on the floor?" The incredulity practically dripped off Gokudera's voice. "You're fucking crazy, you know that?"

There was so much there that Takeshi didn't quite know where to start, so he picked the simplest issue to address. "Of course I don't mind sucking your cock. I _liked_ that part."

Gokudera went still in a way that suggested he was startled. Again. "You... are fucking weird."

"No, I'm not. Not really." Takeshi sighed, and sat up, and drew his knees up to his chest. "Sex is supposed to be fun, you know." Except that Gokudera didn't seem to. "And I like you. I wanted to do something for you that showed you." Which Gokudera had all but demanded, to be perfectly fair. Still.

"You keep saying that," Gokudera said. "That you like me."

"Because I _do_," Takeshi told him, wondering whether they were going to have to go through the entire thing again. "I've liked you for years. Since before you even began to tolerate me, even."

"Yeah? That sure didn't stop you from sleeping around," Gokudera noted, disapproval coloring every word.

Takeshi lifted his hands to his face and ground the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw sparks. "Sex is fun," he said again, holding onto his patience with his teeth. "And I'm not a girl. And I didn't even begin to think that you'd ever do more than just tolerate me until a while ago. What was I supposed to do, pine for you?"

"Fucked if I know, but you could have done something."

"You know," Takeshi said, aggravated, "that's what I thought blowing you was, but that's apparently only if you understand earth logic."

Gokudera's sudden bark of laughter was startling, not least because he sounded genuinely amused. "I forget that you actually do get angry, sometimes. Surprises me every time."

"I'm so glad you're enjoying this," Takeshi muttered.

"Enjoying? No, not really." Gokudera's hand flattened itself against the hollow of Takeshi's back, warm through his pajamas. "But it's impossible with you. To tell when something genuinely matters or not. If you let yourself get angry and show it... that's usually a good sign that you do."

"Taking me at my damn word isn't?" But this was Gokudera they were talking about. "What am I saying? Of course it isn't. Only person whose word you take is Tsuna."

"Only person whose word I know I can," Gokudera agreed, not sounding particularly sorry about it, either. "You... you hardly ever show what's going on beneath."

"What you see is what you get," Takeshi protested, breath catching a little as Gokudera's hand slid up his spine, slow and a little tentative.

"Bullshit." Gokudera's hand settled at his nape, lightly, like he expected to have to pull it away at any moment. "Don't feed me that line of big dumb baseball idiot crap. No one's as fucking laid back as you like people to think you are. Not in our line of work."

"That doesn't mean the things I say aren't true," Takeshi said, leaning into Gokudera's fingers. "That's the honest truth. I don't lie. Especially not to you. You're Family, for pity's sake."

"Nn." Gokudera was silent, and then asked, "Why me? What's in it for you?"

"All the verbal abuse I can stand," Takeshi told him, and earned a snort. "You. You're what's in it for me. Whether you believe me or not."

"You really are crazy," Gokudera told him, fingers moving against Takeshi's nape, delicately. "Just so you know. And I'm going to tell you that I told you so whenever you get around to changing your mind about this."

"Not going to happen," Takeshi said, softly. "Really not. I promise."

"It always does," Gokudera said. The truly appalling part was that he sounded like he was actually easy in his own mind about it. "That's just how it works."

"Not always," Takeshi said, low. "There are other ways. Let me show you?"

"Stubborn," Gokudera said, quietly, and then he let out a breath. "All right. Show me what you think makes you so different."

"Yeah, okay," Takeshi said, and turned to him, settling with him and finding his way by touch as he leaned into him. At the last minute, he remembered Gokudera's reaction from before, and pressed his mouth against the corner of Gokudera's jaw. "I can go brush my teeth, if you want."

"Should make you," Gokudera agreed, but his hand stayed heavy on Takeshi's nape. "That really is disgusting."

"Yeah? Wait till you get to the part where I let you put your cock up--"

"_Jesus_," Gokudera said, sounding truly appalled. "I was trying not to think about that, you jerk."

And yet he'd said something about going out for supplies. Takeshi grinned against his throat. "We'll work up to it," he promised. "There's no hurry."

"...no," Gokudera said, after a heartbeat. "I guess there's not."

All things considered, Takeshi was willing to call that a good starting place.

**- end -**

Comments are, as always, lovely and welcome!


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